PITTSBURGH -- During the pre-game warmups at the Consol Energy Center on Sunday afternoon, in advance of their 4-2 loss to the Penguins, a collection of Blue Jackets fans assembled along the glass and made what can only be described as a desperate, hail mary attempt to persuade the Columbus front office to not trade their captain -- and best player -- Rick Nash.

It's not going to have any impact on what happens over the next 24 hours, of course, but you certainly can't blame them for making the effort.

You also can't blame Nash if he's simply ready for Monday's 3 PM trade deadline, no matter what happens (if anything happens), to come and go, ending what has been three weeks of speculation, rumors and, well, at times complete insanity.

He had no interest in addressing questions as to whether or not Sunday's loss, a game that saw him score a shorthanded goal in the second period, would be his final one in a Columbus sweater, the only one s ever worn during his first eight-plus years in the NHL.

He offered "no comment" when asked if he agreed with his agents recent statement about it possibly being for the best if a trade is completed sooner rather than later.

And who knows, at this point, even if he won't admit it, it might be for the best if something does happen sooner rather than later.

His agent already made it clear that the list of teams that he will accept a trade to will not grow in the offseason, so the list of potential trade partners for Columbus isn't going to change.

The Blue Jackets, owners of the worst record in the NHL through the first five months of a season that, at its best, can only be described as a complete disappointment, are already in what appears to be an everything-must-go fire sale mode. Over the past week alone the team has traded forwards Antoine Vermette (to Phoenix) and Jeff Carter (to Los Angeles), seemingly selling them off at their lowest possible value, perhaps before they had to, blowing up the ship in a season that has been crushed by inconsistent (or just plain bad) goaltending, injuries, and performances that have fallen below expectations.

At this point it's hard to imagine the Blue Jackets, Nash or no Nash, making much of a push next season especially in a division that already houses some of the best teams in the NHL (Detroit, Chicago, Nashville, St. Louis), which would just be another year in what has been a never-ending cycle for Nash and the Jackets.

Through it all, he has certainly been a patient man over the past nine years in Columbus, easily the best player in franchise history and one of the few consistent bright spots for a team that has made the postseason just one time in its existence.

It's still not known what's going to happen before Monday, but everybody involved has taken pretty much the same approach as the waiting game continues -- for now, he's still a Blue Jacket.

"It's been a great time living in Columbus," said Nash on Sunday. "I'm a Blue Jacket today and we're going to do everything we can to move forward as a team. Like I said the other day, these fans deserve a winning team. They're the ones that have been the most patient."

His head coach, Todd Richards, said pretty much the exact same thing.

"Rick Nash is part of our team," said Richards. "Right now he's a Columbus Blue Jacket. Twenty-four Hours from now that might be a different story but right now he's a Columbus Blue Jacket and you treat him as one of our players."

The Morning Skate is back. Every morning for the rest of the season we're going to take a look at the games that have the greatest significance in the push for the postseason for you to digest while you drink your java. We'll throw in some miscellany for the fun of it.

The two teams currently sitting just outside of the playoff picture in the nine and ten spots meet at the Air Canada Centre on Saturday night, and both are in need of a crucial two points. The Maple Leafs have lost three games in a row and are struggling to find some consistent goaltending.

The Capitals, meanwhile, are playing in the back end of a back-to-back situation and need to find a way to solve their road woes, as they're a completely different team away from the Verizon Center.

At home, the Capitals have more wins (and a better record) than any other team in the Eastern Conference with a 20-8-2 mark. On the road? Just 10-18-3. The only teams in the East that have fewer road wins are the Lightning and Hurricanes (also Southeast Division teams).

7:00 ET, Boston at Ottawa

Who would have guessed back in October that a game between the Bruins and Senators in late February would have an impact on the race for first place in the Northeast Division? Entering Saturday's game in Ottawa the Senators trail the Bruins by just three points in the standings, though, the Bruins do have three games in hand. Still, this is the first of two meetings between the teams this week and they still have another meeting, in Ottawa, on April 5.

Perhaps the Bruins will simply take care of business and open up a more comfortable lead in the division, but Boston has been struggling recently and has only won four games in the month of February. Even worse, the Bruins haven't won consecutive games since Jan 10-12 when they knocked off the Canadiens and Jets in back-to-back games.

The Senators, on the other hand, come into Saturday's game on a roll having won four straight and five of their past six, with the only loss on that stretch coming in overtime against Edmonton. During their recent winning streak they've outscored their opponents 21-4, and defenseman Erik Karlsson has continued to pile up the points, now leading all defensemen with 60.

The issue facing the Senators, however, will be the absence of goaltender Craig Anderson, their workhorse this season, after he injured his hand at home following their most recent win on Wednesday night.

8 ET, Chicago at Los Angeles

As always this season, the question for the Kings comes down to whether or not they can score enough to win. Actually, it's not necessarily a question of whether or not they can score enough to win, but whether or not they can actually score. At all.

In 11 games in the month of February the Kings have scored just 18 goals. Total. That's just 1.6 goals per game, which is ridiculously low, even for a team that's at the bottom of the league in goal-scoring for the season.

Not surprisingly, the Kings have won just three games this month (two of them against Columbus and Tampa Bay, teams currently out of the playoff picture) and only two of their past 10.

1 ET, Tampa Bay at Pittsburgh: The Lightning may not make the playoffs, but Saturday afternoon in Pittsburgh will feature Evgeni Malkin going up against Steve Stamkos as the players enter tied for the league lead in scoring.

2 ET, St. Louis at Winnipeg: The Jets look to hold on to their top spot in the Southeast Division and have to do so against one of the best teams in the NHL. Fortunately for the Jets, home ice has been very kind to them this season.

10 ET, Philadelphia at Calgary: Philadelphia needs a win to make up for that ugly loss in Edmonton on Thursday, while the Flames need a win just to keep pace with the other bubble teams in the West.

Less than 24 hours after adding what should be a key piece to the Kings organization (forward Jeff Carter), general manager Dean Lombardi managed re-sign another key player (one that was already on the team) on Friday evening by agreeing to a new two-year deal with defenseman Willie Mitchell.

Mitchell originally joined the Kings prior to the 2010-11 season after spending four years with the Vancouver Canucks, and in his first 112 games with the Kings has scored eight goals to go with 13 assists. His greatest asset (and value to the Kings) is his ability to play as a shutdown defenseman. He logs on average over 21 minutes of ice-time per night, and when he is on the ice the Kings rarely get scored on. This season he has only been on the ice for 1.37 goals against per 60 minutes of 5-on-5 play, which is the best mark of any defenseman currently on the Los Angeles roster.

It's been quite a busy 24-hour period for the Kings defense, as Jack Johnson was shipped to Columbus in the trade that brought Carter to Los Angeles, which was then followed by Slava Voynov being called up from the American Hockey League.

Almost as soon as the Los Angeles Kings snagged Jeff Carter from the Columbus Blue Jackets for Jack Johnson and a first-round draft pick, the buzz picked up about another Kings trade. This one would actually be the team moving out one of their better scorers. And their captain, no less.

TSN's Bob McKenzie -- whose word is about as good as gold in these matters -- reported late on Thursday night/early Friday morning that the Kings were looking to trade Dustin Brown.

Of course things in the hockey rumor world are never that easy. Several hours after the water cooler talk heated up around Brown being available, CBC's Elliotte Friedman reports that Brown is off the trading block.

So, it might be easier to list the teams who aren't interested in Brown. Here, I'll put my insider use to work and take care of that right here. These are the teams who don't want Brown: ........ (*crickets) .....

Who wouldn't want Brown, anyway? He has one of the most team-friendly contracts in the entire NHL. He is signed through this season and the next two for a cap hit of $3.175 million per season. For a guy who is a captain and who, until this season, had consistently been in the mid-to-high 20s in goals throughout his career with a high of 33 in 2007-08? Sign me up.

It does beg the question, then, of why would the Kings want to get rid of him? If everybody else would like him, that should be a sign you have somebody worth keeping around.

Well there are a couple of theories. McKenzie hypothesizes that the Kings do like Brown as a player but he leaves something to be desired as a captain and that Mike Richards is going to assume that role. Seems to me it would be a lot easier to just take away the C, but hey. Another thought is that he could be shipped to get draft picks back after the Kings have unloaded a few.

This much is certain: The trade market just got a whole lot more interesting. I'm not going to say that Brown has the same upside that Nash does, but he's a pretty darn good player. And he's less than half the price of Nash. Both guys are having subpar seasons, so they're kind of a wash there.

That's where it adds some skepticism for me. as mentioned, Brown is having a poor season. It would be selling low instead of high and that's not usually a good business strategy. However if they can still get a high return, then I suppose it doesn't much matter. Everybody on the team is having a down year, that has to be taken into consideration by everybody.

Blue Jackets GM Scott Howson can't like this. All of a sudden there has become a much cheaper alternative to his highly coveted forward. That's not going to help the asking price remain high.

If there is serious traction to this Brown talk, then that only decreases the chances that Nash is traded in the next couple of days, I'd say. Teams will focus on Brown first would be my guess and then once that card is played it will be too late and the Nash sweepstakes will have to reopen in the summer. I already thought the chances for Nash actually being dealt this month weren't great and this doesn't do much to help.

And this, by the way, is obligatory. Any post with Brown must include the following video. From what I've been told, that's a blogger's requirement.

They were both drafted by the team in what turned out to be one of the best draft years the NHL has ever seen (2003). They made their debuts during the same season (2005-06). And for the better part of six seasons they were two of the best players in Philadelphia, until they were both traded last summer in separate deals on the same day, with Richards going to the Los Angeles Kings and Carter being sent to the Columbus Blue Jackets.

On Thursday night, the two were reunited once again in Los Angeles as the Kings continued to do their part to seemingly move the Flyers westward one player at a time.

In the end, it took three separate transactions involving three teams, six players and four draft picks to make it happen. And here is how it all went down.

June 23, 2011: The Flyers started their massive roster overhaul by trading Carter to Columbus for forward Jakub Voracek, Columbus' first-round pick in 2011 (No. 7 overall, which the Flyers eventually used to select Sean Couturier), and a third-round pick in 2011 (which the Flyers used to select Nick Cousins).

June 23, 2011:Not long after Carter was shipped to Columbus, the other shoe dropped in Philadelphia with the bombshell that Richards, their captain, would be sent to the Los Angeles Kings in exchange for forwards Wayne Simmonds and Brayden Schenn and the Kings second-round pick in 2012.

February 23, 2012: The Kings reunited Carter and Richards by sending defenseman Jack Johnson and a conditional first-round pick to Columbus in exchange for Carter, just eight months, 39 games and 15 goals after the Blue Jackets acquired him.

When you get right down to it, the Kings traded what amounts to Schenn, Simmonds, Johnson, a second-round draft pick and what very well could be a mid-to-late first-round draft pick for Carter and Richards. That doesn't seem all that outrageous of a price for two big-time, two-way forwards that should be able to provide above average offense and strong defensive play for the foreseeable future. While also being signed long-term (in the case of Carter, very long-term. Through 2022).

Go back one year, Kings fans, and ask yourselves if you would have taken that deal to land both players. It's very possible, if not likely, that none of the players given up will ever be as good as Carter and Richards currently are, and it didn't involve them giving up any of their own franchise players (Anze Kopitar, Drew Doughty, Jonathan Quick, Dustin Brown).

Of course, that's not to say things haven't worked out OK for the Flyers, as Simmonds is having a breakout year in Philadelphia and Couturier (acquired as part of the original Carter trade with Columbus) looks as if he has a shot to be a really strong player in the future, already playing a decent role for the Flyers as an 18-year-old rookie.

But the team that appears to come out on the short end of it all is the Blue Jackets.

Over the past eight months Columbus has essentially traded Voracek and the draft picks that turned out to be Couturier and Cousins and come away with only Johnson and the aforementioned draft pick from the Kings (which, again, may be at the back end of the first round). With eight months of Carter thrown in the middle. General manager Scott Howson said on Thursday he doesn't regret the initial trade for Carter, just that it didn't work out. And perhaps Carter deserves some (or a lot) of the blame for it not working out better than it did. But at this point, it's hard to look at Columbus and not see a ship that's aimlessly floating around without any real direction.

There's always a winner and a loser in the NHL, and this is a new nightly look at some of the winners and losers in the biggest games and biggest situations across the league.

Thanks to their 4-3 win against the Tampa Bay Lightning, along with the Florida Panthers 3-2 shootout loss to the Minnesota Wild, the Winnipeg Jets, for the time being, are in first place in the NHL's Southeast Division and occupy the No. 3 seed in the Eastern Conference.

This is incredible, and to mark this moment we remind you once again that we could very well see the return of the Winnipeg Whiteout this season. And what a thing of beauty that would be.

Sure, the Panthers still have games in hand, but the two teams also meet two more times this season and with the current nature of the Southeast Division (everybody stinks, apparently) it's certainly possible for now. And that makes them the big winners for the night.

Some of the others...

Winners

1. Vancouver Canucks: The Canucks managed to do what no team has done since Nov. 3 … win a game in Joe Louis Arena as a visiting team. It required a shootout, but Alex Burrows' goal in the third round clinched the win for the Canucks to pull them to within one point of the Red Wings for top spot in the Western Conference.

2. St. Louis Blues: In what was a potential first-round preview in the Western Conference, the St. Louis Blues gained an extra point in a 3-2 shootout win over the Nashville Predators thanks to goals from T.J. Oshie and Andy McDonald. The Blues now have a four-point lead over the Predators for the No. 4 seed in the Western playoff race, which would give them the final home-ice advantage spot in the conference.

3. Slava Voynov, Los Angeles Kings: Yes, the Kings picked up the goal-scoring help they needed by acquiring Jeff Carter from the Columbus Blue Jackets, and that's a huge pickup for a team that is in desparate need of offense. With Jack Johnson going the other way that could mean young defenseman Slava Voynov gets an increased role in Los Angeles to help fill that hole on the blue line, and that makes him a winner for tonight.

1. Toronto Maple Leafs: They not only lost to the San Jose Sharks, 2-1, giving up a pair of goals to Patrick Marleau, the Maple Leafs also fell out of the top eight in the Eastern Conference due to the Panthers gaining a point against the Wild, and the Jets moving back into the playoff picture for the time being.

2. Ottawa Senators: The Senators didn't play on Thursday night, but they suffered a big loss when it was revealed starting goaltender Craig Anderson was injured on Wednesday night after a 5-2 win over the Washington Capitals, sidelining him indefinitely. There's a reason Anderson has played so many games this season, and that's probably because there is a rather large drop from him to backup Alex Auld.

3. Philadelphia Flyers: Philadelphia has hit a bit of a slump here recently and it continued on Thursday with a 2-0 loss to one of the worst teams in the NHL in Edmonton. The Flyers have now won just seven of their past 18 games and currently sit just one point ahead of the suddenly surging Senators for the No. 7 spot in the Eastern Conference.

Welcome to Award Rankings. For every week the remainder of the season, we will break down two of the awards races at a time and see how they are stacking up as the NHL season hits the home stretch.

The Hart Trophy is the king of trophies, the biggest and best (outside of the Stanley Cup and playoff awards, of course) in the game. It goes to the league's most valuable player.

And here's the thing about it this season: It is going to be one heck of a race to the finish to determine it. The top of the points leaderboards are scrunched. So are the playoff pictures. That means the Hart race is in the same squished mode too.

The difference between a lot of guys right now in the Hart race is like differentiating between a Lamborghini or Ferrari, you really won't go wrong either way. Then you have Mercedes Benzs, Audis and Lexuses in the conversation too. So many great choices, so few winners. Just one, in fact. We aren't Jay Leno here and buying them all.

These rankings are reflective of where they stand now. They are certainly subject to change. For example, Steven Stamkos didn't crack the list here, but if the Lightning actually overcome their five-point hole and grab a playoff spot despite selling seemingly half their team, he'd have to be in consideration without a doubt.

Keep in mind the Hart race is incredibly tight with a ton of contenders at this point. There is an argument to be made for a lot of other players as well as for the order here to be changed. I'm sure you'll make those arguments below. This is just one man's opinion.

The Hart starts with a guy who hasn't won it yet despite some awesome seasons recently. But he was hindered by another spectacularly awesome teammate who hasn't been there much to help this season.

We also look at the Vezina, which isn't anywhere near as tight as the Hart race at the top but the fighting for the finalists is fierce.

The Penguins have had to deal with more injury loss this season than any other team, including two of their top three centers. The third is Malkin. He leads the league in points and is second in goals. He's been the best player in the league. But this race is very tight and has a long way to go.

The Rangers are arguably the top team in the league and Lundqvist is a massive reason why. He is tops in the league in save percentage at a whopping .940 and has a goals against of 1.78. He's separated himself from the field ... and the Rangers from the East field as well.

Henrik Lundqvist

Yes, I think he's been good enough to be seriously in this conversation. He's incredibly valuable to the Rangers, that's not a question for anybody. With scoring down so much in the NHL, this is a perfect year for a goaltender to win the Hart again.

He means as much to the Kings as Lundqvist does to the Rangers and I'm not going to penalize a goaltender for his offense's lack of production. His 1.96 goals against and .931 save percentage are very good. He's the only reason Los Angeles is still fighting for a playoff berth.

He was asked to carry a lot more of the load in Philadelphia this season and he has. Despite missing a few games with a concussion, the 24-year-old Giroux is set to pass his career highs very soon with 23 goals and 47 assists already despite playing just 55 games. He's had to with Philly's defense.

Despite recently missing three weeks in February with a broken finger, Howard is still second in the league in wins with 32 (one behind Pekka Rinne). He is having a career season with a 2.03 goals against average and .924 save percentage and is a big reason why the Wings have returned to the top of the West.

Why not? He has 30 goals and counting on the season for the Coyotes, a team that otherwise relies on defense. That's 12 more than anybody else on the team. Aside from Ray Whitney, everybody on the team is at least 16 points behind Vrbata. For a team expected to be in the basement, he deserves a lot of credit.

The only thing keeping Elliott this far down the list is the fact that he splits almost 50/50 in St. Louis with Jaroslav Halak. But his 1.65 goals against average and .937 save percentage are obscene. However he'll be hurt by Halak's success as well as the Ken Hitchcock argument ... he makes all goalies look good.

The assumption before the season was that the Senators were going to be in the running for the best lottery position, not the Northeast Division crown with the Bruins. But here they are and Spezza's 27 goals and 39 assists are a massive reason why. So is Erik Karlsson, but he'll show up elsewhere.

Last year's runaway with the Vezina, Thomas isn't having the season he did a year ago. But in his defense, nobody ever had before him either. He's still excellent with his .929 save percentage and 2.21 goals against. For now he barely beats out Mike Smith and Pekka Rinne in this race for me.

And for a quick look at the rest of the races we'll be checking in on every week.

In the days leading up to the trade deadline (Monday, Feb. 27) we're going to keep tabs on the biggest name on the block, Columbus Blue Jackets star and captain Rick Nash.

The list of teams rumored to be in on Nash isn't incredibly long and it's the usual suspects that you'd expect to be in on a big-name, high-priced star like Nash. His wish list -- put into song so wonderfully -- was supposedly five teams long with possible Wild cards in the mix too.

We're going to take a look at each of the rumored wish-list teams and how Nash would fit, looking today at the Los Angeles Kings.

There aren't a whole lot of certainties in this Rick Nash trade saga. Who's really on the list of teams he'd OK a trade too? Is that list exhaustive? Would anybody actually pay the Blue Jackets' asking price? They go on.

But if there is one thing that we can pretty much say without hesitation it's that no team involved in this conversation -- except for maybe the Blue Jackets themselves -- need Nash more than the Kings. It's been argued that nobody needs to get Nash more than Kings GM Dean Lombardi. His job literally could depend on it.

The Kings are an embarrassment to offense. Sorry Kings fans to put it so bluntly, but with 2.07 goals per game that's something you already know. The Kings are in the process of letting an exceptional season from goaltender Jonathan Quick go to waste. If they could have given him just a little more offense this season -- I'll be kind and say about half-a-goal more per game, which would put them in the middle of the league -- he'd be firmly in the Vezina conversation.

But they aren't scoring that man. And it's starting to increase the heat in L.A. Before the season this was seen as a team ready to make that jump, possibly compete. By so far falling short of those expectations, Lombardi's leash is getting tight.

In spite of it all, the Kings are still in the playoff picture, holding the eighth spot in the West. The postseason has to be the goal at this point to hopefully try and keep the momentum going. That's why Nash has L.A. hockey fans salivating.

The great thing about possibly going to L.A. is that it would give Nash the centermen he was waiting so long for in Columbus. He finally got one in Jeff Carter this season but injuries didn't allow them to play together for very long before the trade talk started up. But in L.A. he'd have a couple of quality centers in Anze Kopitar and Mike Richards to play alongside.

From L.A.'s perspective the fit is great. It's not just that Nash is a scorer, but he plays on the left wing. The assumption would be he would join Kopitar and Dustin Brown on the No. 1 line which all of a sudden doesn't seem so bad.

But of course it's all easier said than done. Because as we've noted, the Blue Jackets want a lot for Nash, as they should. The package from L.A. to get a deal done has long been rumored to be Jack Johnson, Jonathan Bernier, probably another prospect and a high pick.

As the Nash world turns, the indications are getting stronger that L.A. is a less and less likely landing spot for Nash at this time. There are other options that might pop up like Ales Hemsky or possibly even some of the Sabres. So as nice as he might fit and go a long way toward solving L.A.'s scoring issues, the asking price might prove too much for even a desperate GM like Lombardi.